#little guy held the line against the entire PC squad

[snepril]

We had our first session today (not counting Session 0), and I figured I'd be remiss not to mention how things went!

Most of my players are inexperienced or completely new to Lancer, so I wanted our first mission to be a safe chance to experiment and learn. Narratively, it took the form of a VR training mission - one last evaluation before they're sent into real combat. This also gave me some flexibility - by limiting this to a single mission before a resupply, I was able to hurt my players a bit more than if they needed to stay in fighting shape... or at least, that was the plan.

My players handled themselves better than I expected! They worked together, covered each other's weaknesses, and even though I didn't allow core powers (to "better simulate real-world combat conditions"), they managed to carve through to the objective without anyone taking structure damage - although they did come close a couple times.

The real MVP of this mission was a sniper NPC. It never even fired its weapon, but my players spent the entire encounter terrified of the little red dot of death. It was unexpected, and made me realize there were a lot of very fun ways to torment challenge my players without even dealing a single point of damage. All in all, everyone had fun and I'd say it went pretty well!

Hi Vex! First time Lancer GM planning the start of our campaign. I've recently learned that all of my players plan on piloting HORUS mechs, and you seemed like a good person to ask: how scared should I be, and do you know any good ways to mess with them as payback (narratively or mechanically)?

First of all: thank you so much for buying my campaign and running it! You have no idea how gratifying it is to see people enjoying something that I made.

Second, a disclaimer: remember that as a GM, you are here to challenge your players and provide them with a fun experience, not to actually fuck them up or kill their mechs and stuff.

With that disclaimer out of the way, here's how you fuck with an-all HORUS team.

Heat. With the exception of the Manticore and the Pegasus, HORUS mechs tend to have low heat cap, which they compensate for by having above-average E-Def to protect them from invades. But Invade isn't the only way to spike a player's heat. The Aegis' Ring of Fire, the Cataphract's Capacitor Discharge, the Hornet's HEX Missiles, the Mirage's Manifest False Idols, the Pyro's Explosive Vent and Napalm Launcher, the Rainmaker's Hades Missiles and the Scout's System Flayer all deal Heat that doesn't interact with E-Def.

Low Armor. With the exception of the Manticore, no HORUS mech has more than 1 Armor, and most have 0. This means that they can't ignore Reliable damage as easily, and low-damage attacks are more meaningful.

Melee. With the exception of the Balor, HORUS mechs prefer to engage at range: the Gorgon and Manticore at CQB range, the Lich, Kobold and Minotaur at mid range, and the Hydra, Goblin and Pegasus at long range. While some of these mechs can easily be fitted for melee combat, none of them have equipment packages or traits that spec for it like IPS-N and SSC mechs do.

High E-Def. There are a lot of HORUS mechs that like to Invade, and several weapons in their equipment packages that have the Smart tag, meaning they roll against E-Def instead of Evasion. Enemies with high E-Def include the Bombard, Hive, Mirage, Priest, Scout and Witch.

Hope this helps!